Twitter, Obama, and Tribes Or Five Reasons To Love Twitter

In this post I will say why I love Twitter. This is the Follow Up to Eight Reasons To Hate Twitter. Generally I love it because it allows the user to build a tribe. Without having to go buy a book, that means followers.

You know, folks who enjoy what you have to say.

But therein is the challenge. Most people do not have much to say.

In order to build a tribe you must segregate or polarize an audience. Meaning the more people that dislike you, the more people that like you. Think Republican and Democrats. They cannot exist without each other. Twitter and other social media allows you to gain new followers and perhaps email addresses. It expands your reach.

But it isn't the way you might think, or the way it is being taught. It means you must reach out to folks. But guess what? The folks can give two hoots about you and your real estate. All they care about is fly fishin',the latest IPhone, finding classmates, scrapbookin', or charitable info.

So you will need to interact with these folks and add value to their community in order to get anywhere. It is definitely good to be a people person. Some common networks to tap into are:

hobbies
clubs
sports
charities/causes to name a few.

But contrary to what you might be told. Social networks are far from new. Many think that the dating sites were the first to emerge as true social networks. However, online forums, and List Servs that merged into sites like Google Groups, have been around since the beginning of the web. And before that we had BBS's.

Today forums and groups like at Google are more popular than ever. The only difference is that the newer sites like Twitter and Face Book are more robust.

The Obama Myth

Let me also dispel any myths that Obama won the Presidency because of social media. He already had the tribe. They used social media to communicate to grow their tribe. So yes social media had a part in his win. But it certainly is not in any large way the cause.

And this is a huge deception to understand. Most of the success stories we read about with Social media are coming from entities with pre-existing tribes. Starbucks already has a fan base online.So when they Tweet, they are simply meeting their peeps where they are. Celebrities like Ashton Kutcher could tell people to jump off a cliff and some would.

Until you or I got that kind of pull, it is time to get to work.

We must build a tribe. And there in is the biggest misconception and hyped up information about social media.

To be successful one must find those people who need your services and then find a way to help them. So instead of thinking of just jumping on Twitter and that is the be all to end all. Become a data-miner of people that share similar interests as you. Search for real estate buying or selling posts of course.

Where might these folks be hiding?

Besides the obvious places here are some spots to help get you started:

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/reo/
A search in in your favorite search engine for various home forum searches can be a good source. For example this Google Search yielded a few promising sites.
Trulia Voices

Just search and look and you will find places where groups hang out online. And they may or may not be on Twitter.

So what are the Five Reasons I love Twitter?